


cabbie.

by georgeluz (eugeneroe)



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:25:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6180097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eugeneroe/pseuds/georgeluz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>au where joe's a cabbie and david's drunk. events unfurl and has segments that are vaguely inspired by the 1953 film, Roman Holiday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cabbie.

**Author's Note:**

> joe's a bit of a classist here through his thoughts, so warning. also it may sound very inaccurate, so i apologize.

The stranger’s chest rises and falls rhythmically, snores cascade from his lips. Joe looks down at him with a distaste masked by the darkness of his room. HIS room. His goddamn single rented hotel room. Now it’s slowly filling with the stench of alcohol that laces the other man’s mouth. Suppose a piece of Joe hoped the roughness getting the man up to his room with frequent shoves and harsh whispers would have stirred him awake, but all he’s received as a response were slurred hums and incoherent words too drunkenly tossed together he couldn’t decipher it if he tried.   
  
And now he’s asleep.  
  
On his bed. Christ.  
  
*  
  
Starts out with Joe, cabbie Joseph Liebgott minus the hat and the chewed gum, sitting back in his driver’s seat and looking out in the streets. He’s parked outside a cleaner, edgier bar. He’s found a quicker way for cash, see: the nicer the bar, the more money-packed drunk people too shit-faced to drive themselves home or have rides to drive them there’ll be, and there’s the higher propensity to get generously tipped when they’re suspended in that state of incomprehension. Plus they’re likely to have money and not be penny-pinchers.  
  
It’s a surprise he hasn’t devised this plan sooner - his pockets would have been filled with green by now.  
  
He takes a peek at the bar’s entrance through his rearview mirror, seeing some of the patrons smoking outside, laughing, enjoying themselves, while Joe’s all this time to himself, working as a driver during the days he isn’t in the barber shop. An arm drapes on the passenger seat, his car still, off. This happens for another half-hour or so. Sleep must have been winning this battle before Joe realizes since his head’s tipping back to the headrest and he stirs awake by loud, rowdy laughter.  
  
Another peek at the rear-view mirror and there’s fairly nice-dressed men pushing the bar’s door open. Four of them. Two sharing a joke that’s funny enough to carry out of the bar, apparently, by the way they’re laughing with each other, and one holding his arm around another man hunched over.  
  
Joe turns his key in the ignition, the taxi sign lighting up since this may be potential business. Another shit-faced rich asshole too helpless to drive back home to his rich parents, sit on his rich ass, on his rich pile of money. What’s a few measly fives and tens gonna do to dent his unearned income, huh? Thank Christ these money-grubbing fucks aren’t too drunk; the one holding up their hunched over buddy started jutting his chin in the direction of Joe’s cab. A surge of satisfaction and eager anticipation occurs in Joe -- he might as well strike enough money for the week after dropping this guy off.  
  
It’s a triple-power requirement to heave this guy over to Joe’s cab. They open the door, shove the guy in who drapes along the entire backseat like a ragdoll, and they snicker at each other briefly. The main man lowers his head in to speak to Liebgott, one of his arms draping what he can quickly assume is their sleepy friend’s suit-jacket, “Take him home, alright, my good man?” He closes the door and taps his hand against the doorframe. Then they’re gone.  
  
“All right,” Joe starts, glancing to the rearview mirror as the stranger’s current-abandoners leave their inebriated friend all the more. “Where are you headed?” There’s a long sprinkled pause, so long, in fact, that his ears pick up on soft snoring with the occasional sleepy mutter. He turns around, partition open, speaks louder, “Hey! Pal, where’s your place?” He waits for not even five seconds --- the wall of intoxication must be strong in this one --- before he reaches his hand through the slot to reach the guy. His hand doesn’t reach.  
  
The man’s snoring persists.  
  
Joe grits his teeth, the drunkard’s friends out of sight now. “Fuck,” he mutters. It’d make no difference if he shouts it since even that won’t stir him. Lieb opens the door of the driver’s seat and opens the back; it’s reserved for passengers only, but this is one exception. The door lights flip on and the man’s laying on his side, resting his head comfortably on the used (but clean) seats. Joe shakes his shoulder. “Hey! Wake up! Where do you live?” Out of context he sounds like an insane assaulter, but a bit of him wants to get this guy home safely, somewhere deep down, if he started to believe he’ll actually get paid decently when the man can’t even bother to mumble a word Joe recognizes.  
  
His constant tries trying to awaken the man did nothing.  
  
Joe plops back into his driver’s seat and starts driving, already feeling sleep weighing down on him.  
  
“Goddamnit, rich fucks,” his hands tightly clasp the steering wheel, weaving through empty streets without an ounce of traffic. All he gets from the guy are hums of comfort and the sounds of the leather seat squeaking as he tries shifting his body to a better position. A glance at the time says 3:22am. Two hours he’s been driving this guy around and waiting for him to say something. This is the last straw.  
  
Fuck this guy, he can just dump him, right? Or, at least keep him in the car, parked in the hotel parking lot where Joe stays. Lock the doors? Yeah, unless the guy wakes up in a panic from his hangover and struggles to realize he’s locked inside a car, calls the police and starts making exaggerated claims, and the police find Joe to be this tycoon’s kidnapper. Don’t lock the doors and some other guy will break in and steal his ride -- boom, there goes his cabbie business.  
  
Take him home to his place.. might have some rough ends but nothing explaining wouldn’t do. Be less shitty and have less karma on his plate to deal with if he did that than abandon this shit-faced man.  
  
So, hotel it is.  
  
*  
  
And now he’s awake.  
  
Joe brews himself some coffee, thinking this lightweight got smack dab in hard liquor which is why he’s been unconscious longer than Joe’s been asleep. He can only assume he’s a lightweight as most rich fucks are. All talk but not enough in them to hold mass amounts of shit-brands instead of their tiny, occasional hard-brands. The smell perks him up a little, but the grouchiness lingers. Not even the morning oldies-but-classic cartoons really ease up how bitter he’s feeling. The coffee matches his mood.  
  
He brings the styrofoam cup up to his lips, its steam wafting the smell into his nose, then he takes a sip. Lets out an almost stuffy ‘ah’ until he detects movement. The sound hits his ears as the hangover-groan leaves the other’s mouth.  
  
“Agh…. my head.”  
  
Joe’s feeling a little vindictive in a sense he could let the realization slowly seep into him, let his squinting, hard-to-open eyes widen in astonishment of his new surroundings, maybe have a line of worrisome thoughts roll through his mind, but he cuts the idealized, slowly-setting realization short as he blurts out: “Christ, looks to me you’re a lightweight.”  
  
The man lifted his head completely to spot Lieb, eyes widened, stunned, and awfully bluer than Joe would’ve expected. Then again, maybe his money-shitting parents probably afforded to get the best genetics for their yet-to-be-born son who’s got plans as heir of the throne of old money. Gotta look his best for Mommy and Daddy Dollars. There’s acid that laces his words the moment he said them, and he downright refuses to dilute them with any politeness. In fact, as the other’s drunken stupor is coming to a close in the shittiest headache of all-time, Joe’s just getting started to add onto the annoyance. “You gonna say anything? You’ve been asleep the entire ride here last night.” He takes another sip of his coffee, lets the warmth of the cup warm his hands.  
  
Joe expects an ‘I demand you release me, lower-class monstrosity! This is kidnapping! I’m gonna sue! Wait’ll my attorneys hear about this!’ but is met with an oddly calm, yet ruggedly-voiced: “Is that coffee?”  
  
Joe’s quick to bite back, “Why the fuck do you care?” And takes another sip while staring him down, gaze sharpening into daggers that just well-about pierce the rich fuck who twitches an eye, but lets his head back down into the over-fluffed pillows.  
  
“I’m still charging you,” comes after several minutes of died conversation. The only noise being the cartoon sound effects and the slight breeze drifting in through the slightly parted hotel balcony door. “My meter’s off but I’m still counting.”  
  
“What?” So, the man’s still not too hung-over to register that, eh? Maybe they are penny-pinchers.  
  
“You owe me a lot of money,” Joe notifies, earning hostility in his voice that can rival that of a shady dealer. He’s irritated and has dealt with this pretty-boy: his services for driving him somewhere and not letting his friends abandon him (lousy preps too egocentric to really consider much else -- Joe’s seen the kind).  
  
"I don't think that's considered legal. Nor possible."  
  
"Not possible?" Joe stands up, coffee still in his hand. Less then halfway from the rim of the styrofoam cup. "So's being so shit-faced your friends dumped your drunk ass in my cab."  
  
The next scene of events play out with no satisfaction on both sides, the moment he approaches a face naturally lit from the window, Joe threatens to dump warm coffee on his face with the cup holding out, a smirk turning nearly sinister. Though the man without his blazer processes it, eyes widening, and he instinctively shoots out a hand to grab onto Joe's wrist. Through his headache and somewhat glazed eyes still in the need to clear up, he warns: "Don't."  
  
To which Joe replies: "You ain't the boss of me."

**Author's Note:**

> honestly??? i had this weird surge of writing when i made this. i'm not sure whether to continue (i couldn't even write a decent cliffhanger omfg) but anyway. hope you like it.


End file.
